NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 121, 18 November 1940, Page 8

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

BATTLE OF REICH

BRITISH OFFENSIVE

VULNERABLE POINTS

Night after night the British bomber squadrons keep up their consistent, carefully-calculated pressure on the economy which Hitler built in Germany so that he might wage an _ aggressive ' war. But it is difficult to visualise the effect of this pressure until some sudden re- . I velation of a dwindled output or a quickly-closed Leipzig Fair brings it home. A Vital Weakness. Mr. Arthur Greenwood's assertion that the damage which matters has been fiftyfold greater in Germany than in Britain may be supported by some recently revealed facts. It is little realised, for example, that the extensive planning which the Nazis have done to make Germany self-sufficient for a new war has left the country more vulnerable than ever. This is because the core of German self-sufficiency (or attempted selfsufficiency) is the chemical industry, which now consists of a multitude of factories,- each using complicated processes and organised to fit into a scheme which is integrated in the minutest detail. The result is an industrial framework which is very easily dislocated. A country which, like Britain, is able to draw on a wide range of raw materials and partlyprocessed goods from abroad is much less liable to upsets. Severe Strain. The result of the Nazi war planning, as was pointed out early rx the conflict, has been to create an industrial organisation of exceptional fragility. It is therefore highly likely that this organisation, employing refinements of detailed planning and a very skilled staff, may decline alarmingly if lts_J n" ternal arrangements are upset. The necessary upsets may come.about'without a bomb falling near the plants. The strain of working at the severe mental tasks imposed by chemical processes, and the dislocation of supplies by the bombing of railways serving the factory, may prove enough to throw production but of gear. _ There is indeed some evidence that this state of affairs has been- reached months ago and that German industry has been carrying on for some time past by digging into the reserves of materials which* were accumulated by the Nazis as war stocks in the seven years before they provoked war. Drop in Recruits. The Journal of the American Chemical Society has recently published some details of what is happening' to the German chemical industry. In. 1939, according to this journal, "there were 582,000 persons employed in the industry and the reinforcements which it needed from the ranks of university graduates were so great that the percentage, of students leaving secondary schools' who entered themselves ;as , wishing to take -courses in technological training had risen from1 13 (the 1935 figure) to 25. But in the first term of this year, according to an American Consular report, only four of Germany's 22 universities remained open. One example of how , the German plans may be upset by consistent ami accurate bombing is provided by tne rubber situation. The annual rubber needs of the Reich are at least 100,000 tons. Buna, the artificial rubber, has provided 25 per cent, of this,: but by the end of the year it had been hoped to hoist the supply to 60 per cent. Here is a vulnerable point in German economy because it is linked to the plant* making carbide and cyanamide. Needed For Buna. The output of these substances increased from 275,000 tons in 1929. to more than 1,000,000 tons in 1939. Onefifth of this output was taken by the organic chemical industry, especially those plants making synthetic plastics. Acetylene, which is the raw material of buna, is obtained from calcium carbide. Here, then, is an instance of now German industry may be upset at two points, first by the interruption^ of the plants producing carbide, and then by disorganisation of the buna works themselves. . iL . Another instance is seen in the synthetic petroleum industry. The^ output in 1939 is said to have been 2,500,000 tons. It is thought that for some tune the Nazis will be able to manufacture fuel of the necessary quality from Russian and Rumanian supplies. But inthe plants in the Northern Province* alcohol is no longer added to petrol, apparently because of shortage of supply Lead tetraethyl has taken the place of alcohol. However, as lead tetraethyl can be manufactured only H bromine is available, a new method recovering this from potash deposits has had to be worked out. So plant links with plant in this house-of-cards economy. Signs of Trouble. Even before the war the German chemical industry was showing signs of strain arid workers were losing an average of more than two weeks a year through sickness. An organisation in such a situation may rapidly deteriorate when the pressure upon it reaches a certain intensity. At the same time there is other evidence of the damage done by the R.A.F. in its raids on the Reich.. The German' technical journal "Werft Reederei Hafen" recently seemed to disclose that the shipyards at Hamburg and Kiel had been pwt out of action by British bombers. The journal did riot say this, but it did reveal that the big building programmes which were being pushed in those yards, and which would have continued had they remained open, had been "suspended." While much of what has happened in the Reich remains hidden behind censorship there are some things which cannot be concealed. It is clear that the -long-continued attacks on communications have forced the rerouting of traffic and the utilisation of more roundabout and expensive ways of approach. . Oil, labour, and material are all consumed in the German effort to use more .remote ports and railways. v; Evacuation From Ruhr. There has been mass evacuation of workers from the Ruhr, from which trainloads of people have been sent to Belgium and Northern France. There is evidence that production of new type aeroplanes has been impeded and that the Nazis have had to use old ones. There has been\ much destruction at the Rhine ports, throwing an additional weight updh the heavily-loaded railways, and such constant raids as those on Hamm (where many goods trains were loaded late at night and dispatched first thing in the morning) have added ad* ditional pressure.